Firefox 3 Release Notes

v3.0.10, released April 27, 2009
Check out what’s new, the known issues and frequently asked questions
about the latest version of Firefox. As always, you’re encouraged to
tell us what you think, either using
this feedback form or by
filing a bug in Bugzilla.

System Requirements

Downloading

Mozilla provides Firefox 3 for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X in a
variety of languages. You can get the latest version
of Firefox 3 here. For builds for other systems and languages not
provided by Mozilla.org, see the Contributed Builds section at the end of this document.

Installing

Please note that installing Firefox 3 will overwrite your
existing installation of Firefox. You won’t lose any of your bookmarks or
browsing history, but some of your extensions and other add-ons might not work
until updates for them are made available.

Uninstalling

You can remove Firefox 3 through the Control Panel in the
Start Menu on Windows, by removing the Firefox application on
OS X, or by removing the firefox folder on Linux.

Removing Firefox 3 won’t remove your bookmarks, web browsing history,
extensions or other add-ons. This data is stored in your profile
folder, which is located in one of the following locations depending on
your operating system:

Windows Vista

Users\<UserName>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox

Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003

Documents and Settings\<UserName>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox

Mac OS X

~/Library/Application Support/Firefox

Linux and Unix systems

~/.mozilla/firefox

Any version of Firefox that you install after removing Firefox 3 will
continue to use the data from this profile folder.

Extensions and Themes

Extensions installed under Firefox 2 may be incompatible and/or require updates to work with
Firefox 3. Please report any issues to the maintainer of the extension.
When you install Firefox 3 all of your Extensions and Themes will be
disabled until Firefox 3 determines that either a) they are compatible
with the Firefox 3 release or b) there are newer versions available that
are compatible.

Known Issues

This list covers some of the known problems with Firefox 3. Please read
this before reporting any new bugs.

All Systems

If Flash content is active when Firefox crashes, the Crash Reporter may not
activate (bug 422308).
This issue is fixed in Flash 10.

Deleting an entry from the history sidebar, then invoking the Clear Private Data
tool can result Firefox crashing (bug 426275)

Some add-ons that depend on deprecated code may not install properly (see
bug 406807)

Support for Cross-Site XmlHttpRequest has been removed until the specification
becomes more stable and the security model is improved (bug 424923)

After dismissing the "Do you want Firefox to remember this password" prompt, it
is sometimes not possible to focus form fields unless you reload the page (bug 433942)

The new Location Bar, Add Bookmark dialog, and Download Manager information popup
behave inconsistently with Window-Eyes (bug 393398).
This is fixed in an upcoming Window-Eyes release.

Microsoft Windows

A Windows Media Player (WMP) plugin is not provided with Windows Vista and some
other versions of Windows. To view Windows Media content, you must install this
plugin by following these
instructions. After installing you may need to check for Windows Updates
before the plugin will show content properly.

If you are using IPv6 from a network location that doesn't support IPv6 routing
your DNS lookups may be very slow. Set network.dns.disableIPv6 to
true as a workaround (bug 417689)

Linux and Unix

Users running Ubuntu 7.10 may need to update their certificate databases in
order to submit crash reports (bug 407748 for
instructions)

The mouse button assignments for Back and Forward have changed, users may
need to reconfigure their pointing devices (bug 420294)

Incompatibilities between NVIDIA drivers and some versions of the X server
cause scaled images to render incorrectly (bug 411831)

The Orca screen reading software does not read some text, such as the save
password notification, site identity information, or the default prompt text
in search fields - these are known problems with Orca (see Gnome bug 533109
and 533125).
This issue will be fixed in an upcoming Orca release.

Troubleshooting

Poorly designed or incompatible extensions can cause problems with your browser, including make it crash, slow down page display, etc. If you encounter strange problems relating to parts of the browser no longer working, the browser not starting, windows with strange or distorted appearance, degraded performance, etc, you may be suffering from Extension or Theme trouble.
Restart the browser in Safe Mode. On Windows, start using the "Safe Mode" shortcut created in your
Start menu or by running firefox.exe -safe-mode. On Linux,
start with ./firefox -safe-mode and on Mac OS X, run:

cd /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/
./firefox-bin -safe-mode

When started in Safe Mode all extensions are disabled and the Default theme is used. Disable the Extension/Theme that is causing trouble and then start normally.

If you uninstall an extension that is installed with your user profile (i.e.
you installed it from a Web page) and then wish to install it for all user profiles
using the -install-global-extension command line flag, you must restart the
browser once to cleanse the profile extensions datasource of traces of that
extension before installing with the switch. If you do not do this you may end
up with a jammed entry in the Extensions list and will be unable to install
the extension globally.

If you encounter strange problems relating to bookmarks, downloads, window
placement, toolbars, history, or other settings, it is recommended that you try
creating a new profile and attempting to reproduce the problem before filing
bugs. Create a new profile by running Firefox with the -P command line
argument, choose the "Manage Profiles" button and then choose "Create
Profile...". Migrate your settings files (Bookmarks, Saved Passwords, etc) over
one by one, checking each time to see if the problems resurface. If you do
find a particular profile data file is causing a problem, file a bug and attach
the file.

Frequently Asked Questions

What can I do to help?

We need help from developers and the testing community to provide as much
feedback as possible to make Firefox even better. Please read these notes and
the bug filing instructions
before reporting any bugs to Bugzilla. You can
also give us your feedback through this feedback form.

Why haven’t you responded to the mail I sent you?

Use the newsgroup. The Firefox team reads it regularly, and your email may have gotten lost.

Lots of people. See Help->About Mozilla Firefox, Credits for a list of some of the people who have contributed to Firefox 3.

Where’s the Firefox 3 source code?

A tarball of the Firefox 3 source code is available for download.
The latest development code can be obtained by cvs.
Firefox-specific source is in "mozilla/browser", "mozilla/toolkit",
and "mozilla/chrome". Please follow the build instructions.

Where is the mail client?

Firefox 3 works with whatever mail client is the default on your system.
However, we recommend Mozilla Thunderbird, our
next-generation email client and the perfect complement to Firefox.

Contributed Builds

These are unofficial builds and may be configured differently than the official
Mozilla builds. They may also be optimized and/or tested for specific
platforms. You can browse through the available contributed builds on the
FTP
site.